After reading Chapter 4 of Surrounded by Science, which focused on the communication between individuals during science learning, I was surprised at how a simple conversation can be broken down into different types of talk: perceptual, conceptual, connecting, strategic, and affective. Unlike viewing an exhibit on your own, interacting with others while looking at an exhibit is able to provoke all of these different kinds of spoken observations, whether by pointing out a feature or pointing out an association between an exhibit and a personal experience. The presence of just one other person helps an individual learn more about the given exhibit because the interactions that occur between the two members of the dyad are able to benefit both members; they are able to learn from each other by engaging in conversation about what they are seeing or interacting with. Not only does interaction have a positive effect on science learning, but it is able to help researchers observe how different people learn in different ways. According to Surrounded by Science, ” engaging in conversation and discussion promotes learning as well as provides a window into the thinking of individuals or groups. By listening to what people say, researchers can find out what learners know and understand, what emotions have been evoked by an experience, and what gaps in learning may remain” (66). By knowing how an individual responds to certain exhibits or experience, researchers are able to revamp exhibits, perhaps by making them more interactive, or more visual, or more related to other exhibits.

However, interaction doesn’t only have to occur in an informal science setting; it’s definitely effective in informal as well as formal science institutions. I often find myself in situations where those in charge of the formal learning institution (for example, a class at Brooklyn College), will start up a conversation about a certain topic, be it scientific or not (but everything relates back to science, right?). I feel like I always learn more about the topic through the conversations I have with other people in the classroom than when I think about the chosen topic to myself. It’s always better to acknowledge another person’s perspective on something, because it might be completely different than your own, which will lead you to have even more knowledge about the topic. As the great scientist Albert Einstein once said, “The mind that opens to a new idea never returns to its original size.”